Dauthi's 3* Guide - Who to level and how to build 'em! 03/09

Dauthi

ragnarady wrote:

Fix first of Storm builds, it misses two covers (in black, I suppose): 3 5 3
Otherwise, good work!

Ah, thanks for the edit!

I went ahead and added links to all the character's forum page through clicking on their name to make it easier on me and all of you

Nightghost

I have to disagree with how low patch is. Sure you can pair him up to great effect with Loki or some1 else to take full advantage of his green but even without that you can just farm all the AP you need to finish the game in one turn. His awesome healing gives you all the time in the world.
Lately i been having fun with Wolverine+Daken+Blade and it works great.

edit: also when comparing Cage yellow and black dmg output keep in mind his black takes double the advantage of any strike tile you might have.

Unknown

Awesome guide. Thank you so much!

ronin_san

vs .

I think the deal is, Beast rocks when he's paired with certain teams. Put him with Daken and Blade, and he is ABSOLUTELY BONKERS.

But Kamala rocks with almost anyone. Seriously. That's the big difference. Kamala can make anyone better. Beast works most times.

I wouldn't put above Beast, either. His black is absolutely worthless on its own. You go 5/5/3 with him and don't look back.

Consider . He's really fun when someone is putting things out for him to hit. In that case, Luke Cage is a brilliant pairing. Cage can tank and give bullseye free targets every turn for bullseye's dagger.

I have 2 covers in Bullseye's black, and he's only 127. I'm already finding his black incredibly fun. You can get a modest 750-1k additional damage from when bullseye is leveled up, which can really make Cage's black poke with authority. Couple in someone like Daken, and you've got colors and cover redundancy and serious whittle potential. Still though. Bullseye's lower tiered because he doesn't fit in anywhere.

Zombionicdoom

Thanks very much for this post, it's always good to see some different opinions regarding the 3* characters and especially useful for me as my 3* roster is slowly (very slowly!) Getting going. And I made the horrible mistake of selling off a patch with 4 covers, 2 x Classic Mags and a lazy Thor when I was a noob. What a total NOOB!!!!

optimus2861

Nightghost wrote:

Lately i been having fun with Wolverine+Daken+Blade and it works great.

Agreed! That's my best 127 team at the moment. Strike tiles everywhere, three strong attacks for 9 AP or less, AP denial (albeit only one colour), Blade's purple to bleed enemies out, and fast healing between matches.

It's probably not a team that will win a lot of the time on D (good chance it'll hurt you though) but it's pretty fun on O.

ronin_san

optimus2861 wrote:

Nightghost wrote:

Lately i been having fun with Wolverine+Daken+Blade and it works great.

Agreed! That's my best 127 team at the moment. Strike tiles everywhere, three strong attacks for 9 AP or less, AP denial (albeit only one colour), Blade's purple to bleed enemies out, and fast healing between matches.

It's probably not a team that will win a lot of the time on D (good chance it'll hurt you though) but it's pretty fun on O.

Beast is a viable slot-in for wolverine, in that group. He is a monster with them.

DaveR4470

One minor nitpick to an otherwise great guide: you're selling Daredevil short in PvE. Yes, goons can't match his red, and therefore you don't get the big damage. But... YOU can match the red yourself, which gives you more red AP, AND triggers off the power at a reduced damage (4k or so at max, I think?), AND places the trap down again. On a red-heavy board, this can be devastating.

I don't think it's quite enough to raise him up to top tier -- Deadpool is a better choice for exploiting red -- but he's not far away. DD is a good pair-up with Luke and Fist, as he covers the unused colors from that pairing nicely, if you don't have a red/blue-using tank to go with them.

Ouroboros9999

great guide!

Malcrof

DaveR4470 wrote:

One minor nitpick to an otherwise great guide: you're selling Daredevil short in PvE. Yes, goons can't match his red, and therefore you don't get the big damage. But... YOU can match the red yourself, which gives you more red AP, AND triggers off the power at a reduced damage (4k or so at max, I think?), AND places the trap down again. On a red-heavy board, this can be devastating.

I don't think it's quite enough to raise him up to top tier -- Deadpool is a better choice for exploiting red -- but he's not far away. DD is a good pair-up with Luke and Fist, as he covers the unused colors from that pairing nicely, if you don't have a red/blue-using tank to go with them.

DD with Cyclops, all day, especially in long nodes. Stuns and whatnot help, Radar sense against ninjas, and once you have some traps out there, Cyc yellow to set them off in a cascade of never-ending death.

Dauthi

DaveR4470 wrote:

One minor nitpick to an otherwise great guide: you're selling Daredevil short in PvE. Yes, goons can't match his red, and therefore you don't get the big damage. But... YOU can match the red yourself, which gives you more red AP, AND triggers off the power at a reduced damage (4k or so at max, I think?), AND places the trap down again. On a red-heavy board, this can be devastating.

I don't think it's quite enough to raise him up to top tier -- Deadpool is a better choice for exploiting red -- but he's not far away. DD is a good pair-up with Luke and Fist, as he covers the unused colors from that pairing nicely, if you don't have a red/blue-using tank to go with them.

His damage potential is definitely high, but too often you find yourself using/matching his red only to have it sent towards the bottom corner of the board, making it useless. When you have two sides matching tiles there is double the chance you can get back down there, however with just you matching in PVE you can just bout kiss that trap tile goodbye.

I just posted his Damage/Ap ratios and his red is pretty poor when you match it once, but amazing if they match it, so you really lose a lot if the enemy can't match his red. Granted the ratio increases if you are able to reuse his red, but you are really going to be banking on luck or other characters creating red.

Dauthi

Finished all the damage/AP ratios of character's nuke/AOE abilities. I hope this clarifies some of my choices, as the numbers visually display it's raw power. It's too bad abilities like shake-up can't be quantified similarly, but just remember the more tiles destroyed the higher the chance of cascades which are bonus damage and AP!

- Shuffled some characters around in ranking.

- I also added Scarlet Witch after thoroughly playing her the last week or two. She is really fun, and really strong!

TxMoose

thanks for this - love stuff like this. I have ended up dividing up my roster into tiers at the following levels - 166/140/120/104/94/70 and with some variances for cover drops, my roster tiers are very similar to your tiers. recently added Cyclops to my 166 bunch that includes thor/fist/mags and loki is close up there at 153. I never really planned on those tiers but that is just the way it worked out. 104 was my holding level before I started leveling people higher. 120 is cheap to get to. 140 gets them mostly functional and boosted gets them to 200. 94 is where my **s are and 70 is where my useless guys stay and where the ****s start. so, its interesting to see lists like this that mimic my roster. thanks for the work - I know a lot of work goes into these things.

Unknown

Love the guide, but i am missing some characters (Vision, Bullseye). U should really add them all

PUM_SPAK

Dauthi wrote:

...characters health is always divided into 3 pieces thanks to the plus shaped health bar. When a character gets their health slightly below that last line on the plus shaped health bar, they are ready to be downed.

Wow, this is a great little tip for managing Punisher's Retribution power. Switching over to the calculator app has been extremely tedious, and it never occurred to me to leverage the shape of the health bars! Thanks!

scism

Interesting and well written guide - thanks. There are some things i disagree with, and it shows a very different picture vs. the "best character" polls previously, but it also opened my eyes to a few characters i hadn't considered. Some points i would raise:

Hood/Loki - both often rated top 10 and both among my favourites. Yes they are low HP, but this doesnt really matter on offence, and on defense when paired with good matches (eg Luke Cage is one i like for reduced match damage + strong yellow) you will have enough AP when he is downed to do serious damage and so i often avoid

Combinations - a tough thing to take into account with any ranking. Some combos are very strong, and depending on who is buffed this may make a certain character a better choice. One example being Patch + Loki/DD - if either of the latter is featured (or perhaps just if they are buffed, depending on the featured), patch is coming out to play, but otherwise he is kept indoors for being too risky (unless maybe there is easy PvE i dont want to waste health packs on)

Coverage - good combo of colours > best 3 characters. Just stating this given it seems there are some less experienced people viewing this.

She-hulk and Beast - two characters i have fully covered but very low lvl (70). Had these since they came out (i'm day 655 so i've seen all new characters in my time) and they have traditionally been terrible (although i vaguely remember SH being super OP when she first came out but was quickly nerfed iirc), but with recent buffs i still had not really considered them. She hulk certainly sounds pretty good with AP drain, although i assume it can hit a power with 0 mana so not guaranteed? I'll certainly level her next and see how good she really is

Unknown

Nobody but me likes Spiderman. He is not good on defense, but I can take out almost any team in the game, even if their boosted, with Spiderman/Punisher/MMags. Obviously a bad board can ruin any team. Also surprised to see GSBW so low. She is not good on defense because of the AI, but she can be one of the best offensive players in the game. One last note. I hate Shulk. Every time I face her she constantly drains my best ability. But I have never once gotten her green to do anything useful at all. Every single time I have used it, her green has drained nothing but colors the enemy doesn't even use, so I just stopped using her.

Unknown

Cyclops 5 3 5 - Rank 2nd of top tier

Offers - Nuke/Yellow Production/Shake-up
HP - 9,265 Above Average
AP/Damage Ratios - Red (Nuke) - 428 (5 covers) 207 (3 covers) Black (Nuke) - 628 (10 red tiles on the board)

Just noticed a small mistake here: he doesn't create yellow, his yellow creates red, so it should be red producion, not yellow.

Love the guide otherwise. Would be perfect if really ALL 3* characters were in here, because Quicksilver, Vision and Bullseye aren't

Vhailorx

Still a great guide dauthi, with some solid improvements. I still think you are a bit high on blade, a bit low on cage, and way to high on she-hulk (who I find no more intimidating than cage). Also don't understand why there is such a large gap between daken and patch.

Lemminkäinen

ronin-san wrote:

Consider . He's really fun when someone is putting things out for him to hit. In that case, Luke Cage is a brilliant pairing. Cage can tank and give bullseye free targets every turn for bullseye's dagger.

Captain Marvel is also a fun pairing as her Black gives the enemy a weak Strike tile to pop with Bullseye. Just add someone with a nice Blue and Yellow like Beast or CMags.